Judoka is a late 60's comic and later the name of a Brazilian hero inspired by Frank McLaughlin's Judomaster produced for Charlton Comics and now owned by DC. As you can see by the cover art below the first six issues of Judoka were reprints of Charlton's Judomaster series.
It must've been a hit, because with the seventh issue they began original adventures with a new hero named "Judoka" who had a similar skill set to the "Scarlet Smasher".
While they are written in Portuguese you might still like to sample these pages which successfully evoke the style McLaughlin had developed for his Judomaster run. To read (or at least look at) some issues try here.
Oh and by the way, Happy Birthday to Frank McLaughlin!
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I know you have a full set Rip, but back in the sixties – I had that Judomaster issue with the Smiling Skull (which as I recall led to Judomaster going temporarily blind – necessitating Tiger coming in as his aid/sidekick.)…Anyway, that is a sweet Frank McLaughlin cover. Thanks for reproducing this variant…I wish I still had those issues… Wish-list: Judomaster & Tiger teamed with Cap and Bucky taking on Red Skull and Smiley during World War 2 in a DC/Marvel crossover graphic novel – that’s something I’d like to see some day…(John Byrne could do it – not unlike the Batman & Robin/Cap & Bucky story from a few years back.) It would be a cool way to reinvigorate the original Judomaster character if nothing else.)
ReplyDeleteAs World War II falls ever farther into the past I detect that comics will forget about the time which in many ways gave form and vigor to the superhero concept. Judomaster and Tiger were great throwback characters when they hit the stands in the 60's, very much in the classic hero and sidekick style which dominated the Golden Age.
DeleteI think way back when I first got onto these here internets I was in a Yahoo group that specialized in fan fiction and I wrote some sequences which teamed up Cap and Judomaster, or maybe I just thought a lot about doing that. It's a natural.
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Better yet, a talented writer could team up JM and Cap, and an artist with more than two faces and body types in his repertoire could draw it. So no John Byrne needed. That Batman-Cap team up was awful.
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